The Supreme Court seems likely to strike down a California law that mainly regulates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.
Both conservative and liberal justices voiced skepticism Tuesday about the law that requires the centers to tell clients about the availability of contraception, abortion and pre-natal care, at little or no cost. Centers that are unlicensed also must post a sign that says so.
The centers say they are being singled out and forced to deliver a message with which they disagree. California says the law is needed to let poor women know all their options.
Similar laws also are being challenged in Hawaii and Illinois.
At different points in the arguments, liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said they were troubled by aspects of the California law.
Kagan said it seemed that the state had “gerrymandered” the law, a term usually used in the context of redistricting, to target the anti-abortion centers. Sotomayor said there was at least one instance dealing with unlicensed centers that seemed “burdensome and wrong.”
Justice Samuel Alito, a likely vote for the centers, said the state’s criteria about which centers are covered by the law seemed to take only “pro-life clinics.”
“When you put all this together, you get a very suspicious pattern,” Alito said.
The outcome also could affect laws in other states that seek to regulate doctors’ speech.
Read the full story at the Chicago Sun Times
